Thursday, 19 July 2012

The other side of Parking Charges - pay and display

After the great news about season ticket prices coming down, last night the Launceston Community Network Panel had a discussion about the hourly rates for pay and display tickets.

We start off at a disadvantage in that Cornwall Council is still insisting on raising a certain amount from each car park and uses a spreadsheet to judge whether income from a proposed change would be acceptable or not. In essence, they do not agree that lower prices might attract substantially more drivers to park in our car parks - enough to actually see an increase in income despite the lower costs.

However, on the basis of this restriction, they have modelled a number of options and one which is gaining a lot of support is to abolish the first hour charge and move straight to a £1 for up to 2 hours charge.

On the plus side, this would encourage people to do more than dash in and dash out of town. On the negative side, people who genuinely only want a short stay might feel that their costs have been doubled.

However, with 42 free limited waiting bays available around the town centre, there is still a high possibility that drivers can park for half an hour or an hour for nothing anyway.

One twist that was proposed - but which has not yet been put to parking managers - is to allow a 10 or 15 minute free period in the car parks. Drivers would still need to get a ticket for that period, but it might assist those who are on a 'dash in/dash out' mission to a single shop.

With or without this twist, what do people think about the proposal to reduce the two hour charge to £1 but abolish the option of a single hour? All comments welcome.

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